


How Terrible It Is To Love Something That Death Can Touch

by spocksbrowneyes



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Depressed Spock (Star Trek), Emotionally Hurt Spock (Star Trek), Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, James T. Kirk is a Good Boyfriend, M/M, Mentioned Amanda Grayson, Nothing too explicit though, Past Character Death, Sad Spock (Star Trek), Sad with a Happy Ending, Shore Leave, Spock Needs a Hug (Star Trek), suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28777470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spocksbrowneyes/pseuds/spocksbrowneyes
Summary: It was cold and foggy in San Francisco as usual. The frigid winter digging its teeth into the shoreside city. The wind rustled in the trees, and disheveled Spock’s hair. Spock could see his own breath and still felt cold despite his jacket and scarf.  He looked at the stone slab in front of him and tried to hold back tears, trying to hold back emotion.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 6
Kudos: 52





	How Terrible It Is To Love Something That Death Can Touch

It was cold and foggy in San Francisco as usual. The frigid winter digging its teeth into the shoreside city. The wind rustled in the trees, and disheveled Spock’s hair. Spock could see his own breath and still felt cold despite his jacket and scarf. He looked at the stone slab in front of him and tried to hold back tears, trying to hold back emotion. There wasn’t a body left to bury, but he didn’t know if that was good or bad. Seeing Pike lying lifelessly in a casket wasn’t exactly pleasurable, but at least there was something more than memory left.

Spock sighed, and looked at the space of earth, and the headstone:

_ Amanda Grayson _

_ 2210 - 2258 _

_ Beloved Mother, Daughter, Teacher, and Wife. _

Spock hung his head, looking down at the lightly frosted grass, trying to keep his composure. There wasn’t a real point in doing that, however. There was no one else around. The Starfleet cemetery wasn’t really a destination for many people on the first day of shore leave. It wasn’t the first time Spock had been here, of course. She’d been given the memorial not long after Pike’s death. Ever since then, it was almost calming to be there for Spock. He’d come by when Jim was in the hospital, and when he’d woken up. When he’d commed Sarek to inform him of the memorial she’d been given, only to get a lecture on why dwelling in the past was illogical.

He was here now to apologize. It was highly illogical, but he couldn’t say it to Jim. He was here to apologize for Altamid, for almost dying. For scaring him. Spock knew that he wasn’t responsible for being impaled, or for the lives that were lost, but it felt like he was. But for what could have been too. Spock couldn’t help but imagine if Amanda had been alive. How terrified she would’ve been if she’d received a message from Starfleet saying that her son was sitting in the ICU of a Yorktown hospital, barely conscious, barely alive, with a gash an inch from his heart. 

The gusty wind and rustling of trees were interrupted by a blip from Spock’s communicator. He pulled it out of his pocket, a message from Jim,  _ “Where are you? I tried to call you and you didn’t pick up. Are you okay? Should I come and get you? Please call.” _

Spock flipped his communicator shut, and guilt cut through him. He didn’t deserve Jim. He was far too good to him. Spock knew that if he heard his voice break, he wouldn’t hate him for it. He wouldn’t ostracize him for his emotions. And yet he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t call him back. He looked back to the headstone, warm tears dripping down his cheeks.

He gave the Vulcan salute, and voice shaking he whispered, “I love you. I never told you that, but I promise you that I do.”

Spock’s gaze, marred by tears lingered a bit longer, before he turned, and left. He walked across the campus, pulling the hood of his black jacket on, hoping nobody would recognize him, and start a conversation. The sky was blanketed in dark grey clouds, threatening rainfall. Amanda had always loved that kind of weather. Spock thought back to the first time he went to Earth. He’d been with her, and it’d been raining, the first time he’d seen it. 

Spock’s communicator blipped again, it was Jim again,  _ “Where are you??? Why aren’t you answering???” _

Spock sighed and brushed away the tears from his face, then texted back,  _ “I am fine. I am in route of our apartment.” _

The device buzzed again, but Spock put it in his pocket and kept walking, tears still staining his cheeks. He watched his feet as he walked. He missed her so much. And yet, when put under the circumstance to join her, he felt afraid. He said he didn’t feel, he said he didn’t fear death. And yet sitting with McCoy on Altamid, whenever he thought of the experience, and every day when he saw the gruesome scar, he felt afraid. Every time he saw that stone slab, every time he picked up his lyre, when he saw it rain, whenever he thought of her honey-sweet voice, the voice that was slowly, and tortuously fading from his memory, he felt scared. A soul-crushing kind of sorrow.

The kind that wasn’t the reason for his tears, but the kind that was too intense to feel it anymore. The kind that left him numb. More so than any Kolinhar ever could. The kind that made him tired, and weak. The melancholy that made him drift, that destroyed his relationships. The one that destroyed his relationship with Uhura. The one that was pushing him away from Jim right now. The kind that made him not respond to his texts, and turn away dates. The despair that had splattered green blood on his wrists, and the white bathroom counter. That had prompted the cuts that terrified Jim. Spock came to the entrance of the apartment building. He took a deep breath and went in. Pushing the door to the stairs open, and pushing his hood off. His hair was messed up, face tearstained. He’d been picking at the scabs left over from the dermal regenerator on his arms, making them bleed again. His eyes were tired, all of him was tired, he hadn’t slept nor meditated well lately. 

Spock sighed, brushing his now dry cheeks off once more, and keyed in the code to their room. The door slid open, and Spock crept into the room. Quietly taking off his scarf, and hanging it up, as if Jim wouldn’t notice he was home if he was quiet enough and if he didn’t turn the light on. Suddenly, said light, was flicked on and before Spock could react, he was nearly tackled, love and affection and concern going a mile a minute through the touch.

Jim pushed out of the hug putting his hands on Spock’s shoulders, “Spock! I was so worried about you! Are you okay?”

Spock didn’t know why, but he hated the touch. The warm, human feeling of love, love, and affection. Of caring, the feeling of being a part of something, of being more than a shell made of logic. He wanted to feel cold, lonely, empty, and forgotten. He wanted Jim to let go of him. Physically and emotionally. Somehow it was just easier to be hated. Why couldn’t he just be how he was meant to be!? Distant, a freak of nature, a mistake. He wasn’t even meant to be born alive. He didn’t deserve the love and affection Amanda had put into him. Her life cut short because he wasn’t fast enough. He wasn’t good enough. **He wasn’t enough** . Just because he and Michael forgave each other, it didn’t mean that it hadn’t left a scar, and the thing about scars is you know how you got them, and the thing about knowing how you got them is that you know how to give them. He had hurt Amanda with his words, so many times. He’d hurt Jim with his fists. He deserved this pain. And he didn’t deserve their love.

Spock didn’t answer, he pushed Jim’s hands from his shoulders. Jim looked completely heartbroken, shocked. He was watching Spock, his eyebrows furrowed lightly, blue eyes sad, and his mouth open a bit like he was trying to say something but couldn’t speak. His expression changed though, closing his mouth, his brows furrowed but his eyes soft, and his lips in a soft frown. He sighed and turned around, walking back into their room. Spock bit the inside of his lip, holding his facade. It hurt to push him away, but in the end, he’d be better off. If Jim was able to get the fact that Spock wasn’t deserving of his time, he’d be ecstatic to be rid of him. Maybe if he was lucky, Leonard would even chase him down and chew him out. Maybe someone from his past would come along and punch him for existing. Maybe if he went out to the shoreline tonight the edge would be just a little too slick, the wind a little too strong, the water a bit too rough, a bit too deep.

\---

They had been in silence since Spock had rejected Jim’s touch. Spock was sitting at the kitchen table, tapping away on his laptop, doing the work that always seemed to just appear. Jim was sitting on the couch, looking at him, the same sad look he had held earlier. He got up, and stood next to Spock, watching him work. He didn’t even bat an eyelash, just kept working. Him being alone was better for everyone else. So even if it stung, even if he felt hollow, and cold, and lonely, they’d be okay. He had spent so many years of his life being ostracized from everyone else, so many years by himself. What was some more? What did it matter if he was drowning in his own thoughts? What did it matter if he felt lost? What did it matter if he was suddenly gone? What did it matter if he let go? Jim had the rest of the crew. Sarek didn’t care for him anyway. Michael had her friends. Sybok had people he met on whatever adventures he went on. And Saavik… Saavik had Michael and Sybok, Sarek too. They’d be okay, they didn’t need him.

It almost sounded nice, to throw some of his things in a backpack, leave tonight for nowhere, in particular, just somewhere he didn’t know anyone. Fall into the shadows, disappear without a trace. And yet he couldn’t. He didn’t deserve the chance. He didn’t deserve to be free from the fallout of his actions. He didn’t realize it, but he had been so caught up in his thoughts that he had just been sitting there, hands idly resting on the keyboard, staring off into space. Jim slowly closed the computer so he didn’t shut Spock’s hands in it. Spock looked at him. His fluffy blonde hair messy, and his blue eyes mesmerizing as usual.

Jim held his face in his hands caressing his cheek with his thumb, “Can you just talk to me? What’s wrong?”

There was concern flowing through the touch. Spock didn’t want his care, didn’t want such precious feelings and time wasted on him. He pulled away from the touch.

Jim didn’t yield, “Spock, stop pushing me away. I just want to help you.”

Spock couldn’t meet his eyes. His beautiful azure eyes. They looked like the ocean on a warm fall day, a deep blue, calm, and welcoming. He didn’t want their gaze to be wasted on him.

Jim wrapped him in a hug, “I’m not going to sit by and watch you do this to yourself when you’re suffering.”

Spock wanted to break out of the hug, he didn’t want to be touched, because he didn’t deserve to be touched. And yet at the same time he did. There is only so much someone can build, and yet on the other side of that, there is only so much one can destroy. Jim was warm, his embrace tight and secure. Full of affection and care. Something inside of Spock, something, he didn’t know what, it broke. Something holding back the tension, the melancholy of his mind. It seemed to just snap, broken by stress. He surrendered into Jim’s touch, and he didn’t know why but started crying. He felt pathetic, why couldn’t he keep himself under control?

Jim rocked back and forth, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Jim picked him up, and Spock honestly didn’t feel like fighting it, so he let it happen. He set him down on their bed and continued with the same motion.

Jim made delicate circles next to Spock’s shoulder blades, “You’re alright, you’re alright.”

\---

Spock woke to see Jim asleep next to him. He looked peaceful in the dark. Spock got up gently so as not to wake him. He walked over to the door in the living room which led to the balcony. He slid it open, stepping out as he looked over the city and the sky. There were lights reflecting off the water, and lights up the sides of towering buildings. It wasn’t like his home at all, and even though he’d been here for years now, it felt foreign. Yet, it was familiar. They were high enough in the apartment complex that you could see the stars from there, and they always made him feel like he belonged. Even though the sky was different from Vulcan’s, and the view from the observation deck was always different, it felt like it was where he was meant to be. 

He remembered when he sat with his mother when he was eight years old, out on the deck, and looking into the night sky of the desert planet. The temperature plummeting in the darkness, but the sky was filled with thousands of stars, shining from billions of miles away. Amanda would tell him of the stories about the constellations on Earth, works of fiction, but making reality seem that much greater. Spock remembered that after that night, he could often be found there, and he began dreaming of one day leaving the planet, and getting closer. While his mother didn’t share as deep of a love for the cosmos as he did, she always watched him with joy. Having woken up in the middle of the night, going out on the balcony, seeing him lie flat on the ground, reaching up with his hand as if he could touch them when he was ten. Then seeing him at seventeen, the night before he left for Starfleet, looking out upon the stary void, and she knew that he belonged up there.

Illogical as it was, she would always talk about how when someone passed, they went up there to rest in nebulas, and create new stars so that one day, they could look back again and see what the world was now. Spock knew it wasn’t true, but at the same time, he wished it was. He hoped that Amanda was resting peacefully among them, he hoped she was happy. 

Jim slid the door open quietly to look out at Spock. He walked up to stand beside him, “They’re beautiful aren’t they?”

Spock nodded, indeed they were.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for reading. This has been sitting in my Drive for... a long time. I hope you enjoyed it. I just wanted to get something out for you guys. I think I'm going to start another multi-chapter project, I'm not sure when though. If you have any ideas, leave them in the comments or you can find me on Tumblr by the username spocksbrowneyes. Anyway, thank you, and have a nice day.


End file.
